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MLE and becoming-nation

Agcaoili to speak at SMU:

“Mother language education, education to cultural democracy,

and becoming-nation”

St. Mary’s University, one of the premier institutions of higher education in Region II, in partnership with other sectors in Nueva Vizcaya, will host the first-ever Mother Language Education Forum on August 1 at the university’s Teacher Center.

Invited to speak to educators, cultural workers, graduate students, government leaders, and advocates of cultural and linguistic rights are Aurelio Solver Agcaoili, PhD, president of Nakem Conferences International and executive director of the 4th Nakem International Conference. Agcaoili runs the only Ilokano-degree granting program in the world, the Ilokano Language and Literature Program of the University of Hawai’i at Manoa.

Also invited to join Agcaoili as speaker at the forum are Prof. Ched Arzadon of the College of Education, University of the Philippines, and Dr. Gloria Baguingan, retired professor of linguistics of the Nueva Vizcaya State University in Bayombong.

Agcaoili will problematize the issue of ‘becoming-nation’ in light of the problematiques of Philippine education particularly along issues relevant to cultural democracy and social equity.

On July 25, Agcaoili spoke before the Polytechnic University of the Philippines Graduate School. In his talk, he exposed the lies and ruses used by government policies on education in the effort to prop up an empty concept of a Philippine nation-state that did not regard the reality of ‘manyness’ of nations in that political concept of nation.